


A Night On The Town

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bar fights, Gen, Humour, no Cap2 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 20:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1483297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The thing is, Steve Rogers spent a hell of a lot of time getting beat-up in back-alleys before the serum. He was always the plucky little guy getting his ass handed to him, determined not to back down for anybody, and the only thing the serum changed about that was that instead of having his ass handed to him he started handing other people theirs.</i>
</p><p>Tony Stark takes Steve and Bucky out for a night on the town. Possibly he regrets this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night On The Town

**Author's Note:**

> A response to my own [prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/18271.html?thread=43246431), since no one else answered it.

**A Night On The Town**

The thing is.

The thing is, Steve Rogers spent a hell of a lot of time getting beat-up in back-alleys before the serum. He was always the plucky little guy getting his ass handed to him, determined not to back down for anybody, and the only thing the serum changed about that was that instead of having his ass handed to him he started handing other people theirs.

That was later, though. The point is, Steve used to get beat-up a lot, and there was nowhere he got beat-up more often than in bars. Steve was pretty mouthy for a such a little guy, and bars were full of guys just drunk enough to think hitting a guy who barely came up to their shoulder was a fair idea, or to at least not care about fairness anymore, if they ever did. At that point, of course, it was Bucky’s solemn duty to punch those assholes in the face, because no one hurt Steve on his watch and got away with it. And the guy Bucky punched usually had a bunch of friends, which meant that next thing Steve and Bucky knew, they were at the centre of a brawl encompassing half the bar. Usually the whole thing ended with Steve and Bucky being thrown out of said bar, and picking themselves up and taking themselves home to nurse a black eye or split lip.

Half the time it wasn’t even Steve’s fault, not really; he was too damn earnest about his opinions, that was the problem, and there were too many men out there who got their kicks from taking out their frustrations on people ill-equipped to fight back.

The bar fights didn’t even stop after Steve became Captain America, because while you’d think no one would be stupid enough to pick a fight with a guy who could bench-press a car, you’d be wrong. There was always some knucklehead ready to object to the fact that a black man was in the same bar as him – never mind that Gabe Jones was a Howling Commando, and one of the bravest men Bucky ever met – and well, Steve wasn’t the sort to let some idiot with too much alcohol in him insult one of his men. And some moron who was idiot enough to pick a fight with _Captain America_ wasn’t going to be bright enough to know when to stop, so things ended in a bar brawl, just as they always did – although now it was Steve knocking heads together and throwing people into the street, instead of the other way around.

So, when Tony Stark insists that he take Steve and Bucky out for a night on the town to experience the 2ist century nightlife, Bucky knows it isn’t going to go well.

But Steve says, “Sure, sounds swell,” and offers one of those bright smiles of his, one of the deceptively guileless ones (and Stark is taken-in completely, Bucky can tell), so Bucky resigns himself to one of those nights.

Not that he really minds. It’s been a long time since he last had the chance to paint the town red (somewhere around seventy years), and what the hell, it’ll be just like old times.

* * *

Everything seems to go well, at first. The music is terrible and the dancing’s more like screwing with your clothes on than anything Steve and Bucky would call dancing (for crying out loud, has no one in this century heard of class?) but Steve dutifully tries to get the hang of it and Bucky has a good time laughing at him and his uncomfortable expression. Someone spills Steve’s drink, but that’s okay because Steve – Jesus – apologises for being in the guy’s way, and it’s all fine. But the night goes on, and people start getting plastered, and it’s about then that the trouble hits.

There’s a girl near the dance floor, a pretty little thing with a stubborn twist to her mouth, exactly Steve’s type, being harassed by some creep who won’t take no for an answer. He’s pushing up in her space and ignoring her attempts to push him away, and Steve’s eyes narrow, and he makes a beeline for the guy across the crowded club.

“Here we go,” Bucky sighs, and knocks back the rest of his drink.

“What? Where’d Spangles go? Wait, where are you going?” Stark demands, as Bucky follows his friend across the room.

“The lady told you to leave her alone,” Steve says as Bucky joins him, looming over the guy with his arms folded and a judgmental expression on his face.

“Hey, who the hell are you?” the guy retorts, bristling, and Bucky thinks, _you poor goddamn fool._

“I’m the guy who’s telling you to stop,” says Steve firmly, and glances at the girl he came over here to rescue. “You okay, ma’am?”

“I’m fine,” says the girl. “Excuse me.” She takes the opportunity to move to another part of the room. The guy creeping on her tries to go after her, but Steve grabs the back of his t-shirt.

“If a lady says she’s not interested, you _listen_ , son,” Steve says, and Bucky can guess how well _that’s_ going to go down.

“Fuck you!” the guy yells, and tries to deck Steve. Steve being Steve, he just ducks, and punches the guy back hard enough to lay him out on the floor.

That’s when the guy’s buddies push their way through the crowd, looking drunk and vicious. Bucky cracks his knuckles, and steps forward to have Steve’s back just as the assholes go for him.

Steve hits the first guy, but Bucky punches the second guy in the face, sending him sprawling. A second guy tries to glass him, but Bucky dodges and grabs the guy’s arm, twisting until he feels the _pop_ he’s been waiting for and hears the guy howl. He ducks another badly-thrown punch – Jesus, these guys are hopeless – throws a guy into the guy behind him, and knocks another man down just as he’s trying to attack Steve from behind.

Steve, meanwhile, hasn’t been idle: a few of the guys have picked themselves up and gone after him again, and Steve’s been dealing with them in the brief, brutally-efficient fashion he learnt fighting Nazis. A group of drunk louts are no match for him and Bucky, and only a couple of minutes later the two of them are standing in the middle of a circle of downed men.

Steve flashes Bucky a cheerful smile, and Bucky can’t help but grin back.

“Oh my God, what is _wrong_ with you?” a wide-eyed Tony Stark says from nearby. “What did you _do?_ ”

“Just enjoying my night out,” says Steve, while Bucky shrugs, and offers, “See, Steve likes it when people try and punch him in the face, because now he can actually punch them back –”

“Says the guy who punched anyone who ever looked at me funny–” Steve argues.

“A strong enough hit could have _killed_ you back then, punk, of course I punched anyone who looked at you funny–”

“Guys,” Stark says urgently, “argue some other time, we need to get out of here–”

Which is about when the coppers show up. Bucky and Steve look at each other, and back at the coppers.

“Gentlemen,” Steve says, and offers them a calm smile. “What can we do for you?”

* * *

“Are you proud of yourselves?” Stark asks later. He’s downright furious, which Bucky can’t help but find hilarious: he knows Steve does too, because his solemn expression keeps slipping and then being yanked back into place. Turns out Stark takes spending a few hours in a cell about as well as his dad did.

As Bucky watches Steve’s lips twitch upwards, before he forces them down again.

“Tony, we’re really sorry,” says Steve, “we didn’t mean for us all to get arrested, really–”

“I thought we’d have a _quiet night_ , my God, I thought you were a pair of old fuddy-duddies who could use a reminder of what fun is–”

Bucky shoots Steve a quizzical look, because he sure as hell never gave anyone that impression, but Steve just shrugs, equally bemused.

“–and then it turns out you two turn a night out into a round of Street Fighter, or something, like a pair of deranged punching machines, you’re lucky no one pressed charges, _Christ._ Do you have anything to say for yourselves?”

Steve shrugs.

“Not really. But thanks for taking us out, Tony,” and there’s a glimmer of a smile if you know how to look for it, like Bucky does, “it was just like old times.”

Stark splutters, so Bucky claps him on the shoulder and adds, “Yeah, thanks, pal. We’ll have to do this again sometime. Next weekend?” Bucky asks Steve.

“You’re on,” Steve agrees.

“ _Never again_ ,” Stark calls after them loudly as they walk away.

“Come on,” and Steve slings an arm around Bucky’s shoulders, “I don’t feel like sleeping, and there’s a classic movie marathon on tonight.”

“Casablanca?” Bucky asks, because he never did get to see the end of that film.

“Casablanca,” Steve agrees, smiling.

 


End file.
